Chezwezl nearly falls off Trigger as he guffaws at Libri's quip. "Them snots weren't too troublesome. Do you suppose they overtook these halflings? They mustn't have very prepared if that were overcome by these little slimys."
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"Hm. I am not certain. We should make it our effort to bring all those who have passed back to Torch so that they might have a proper burial once we are finished with our quest. Or at least let the proper authorities know of their whereabouts upon our return." Libri wipes some remnant fungi from her blade. "If only these creatures were the worst we come across in our quest. I do not believe we will be so fortunate, however." Libri looks back in the direction from which the group just came. "Shall we backtrack and take the southern route?"
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"This is a sad business, and one I hope to be done with soon so I can get back to forge. We'd best not end up like this lot."
The southern passage leads on for a bit before you see a collection of crates, boxes, rubble, and scavenged metal lying heaped to the northwest of a damp cave. Several strange chalk drawings of twisted, spiny plants, a strange three-legged creature, and emaciated four-armed humanoids mark the walls.
Chezwezl points toward the southeast. "Look there! There's something trying to sneak off, behind those boxes!" Mef will move in the direction to investigate.
Taran perks up when Mefindio speaks.
(Undercommon) "Hey, hold on there. We don't mean to be causing you harm, but there's a lot of dead folk in these caves, and some folk sneaking around the dark puts us all on edge. If you come out and talk, I swear on the soul of my Grandmother that we will not harm or hold you."
Chezwezl leaps forward and catches a smooth-skinned, hairless humanoid female with penetrating eyes and skin that seems to shift and change to mimic the boxes behind her. "Sorry!" she squeaks back in Undercommon to Taran. "But what are you doing here? The others are going to like it too much if they catch me talking to you."
Taran patiently translates for the others benefit.
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"What others? What sort of race are you, I've never one of your kind." Chezwezl asks, looking back and forth between the female and Taran. Thinking for a moment his eyes go a little wider. "Your not a Nihilist are you?"
The skulk switches to Common for the benefit of the party. "Please, my name is Luepel. Our tribe emigrated here from the Darklands led by a powerful sorcerer we both feared and adored. We clashed with the gremlins and pushed our way north until the first batch of thugs came, whom we swiftly took out. The second group we had no contact with but the third group slayed our leader and we retreated. There are now four of us left."
Luepel thinks for a moment and then offers, "If you will agree, half of you can accompany me to speak with our chieftain. You can choose which half of you will go. Our leader is Sef. I imagine, like myself, that she is tired of fighting and we'd like instead to arrange a deal with you. But you have to agree to my terms first: half of you stay and the other half come with me to meet her. Our other two tribesmen are just down this hall here, the others can stay with them if they wish."
"Well, since you trusted me it would only be fair to trust you. I'll volunteer if'fn nobody else will."
Chezwezl shrugs and glances at Libri. "I'm not much for pretty words, but I'd prefer to talk rather than fight. I can come along if no one else wants to."
The skulk does not seem hostile.
Luepel leads the party down the corridor to a large chamber with a ceiling nearly 30 feet overhead. A five-foot-ledge runs along the western wall, sloping down to the cave floor ten feet below. Four ramshackle huts made of what appear to be strips of metal, hides, and some sort of fibrous plant matter sit in the cave, while to the south yawns a dark pit.
On the far wall of the cave is a strange metal wall. A soft, cold breeze rises from the pit to the south. Luepel introduces you to Brath and Yadriss, the two other skulks in their dwindling tribe. They remain quiet and suspicious but do not object when Luepel leads Taran and Mefindio further on to meet the leader, leaving Libri and Jorac behind with the two male skulks in the large chamber.
Following Luepel, Taran and Mefindio are led to a cramped cave to the north filled with metal junk covering almost every inch of ground. The precarious pile rises up in a heaplike hut to the northwest.
The current leader of the much-diminished skulk tribe dwells here. Luepel introduces her as Sef. After hearing your names Sef begins, "I am glad you have agreed to parley. I have a proposition for you; we are not currently in much of a position to defend ourselves against invaders like yourselves. We will grant you free passage through our caves and even give you a strange device I've recovered from among the wreckage that you might find useful or interesting, but of course I will need you to agree to two things."
Sef pauses for a moment before continuing, "First and foremost, you will of course leave the skulks down here alone and unharmed. Secondly, I ask you to help us by clearing out the annoying nest of jinkin gremlins to the north. Does this sound reasonable enough?"
"Well, I figure that's a fair enough deal on the surface. Leaving you alone is easy: leave us be, and we are more then happy to leave you be."
"Still, I would put some conditions of my own on the deal. I'd feel better if we could see the device in question before troubling any gremlin nest; no need to stick our necks out for something that ain't worth a heap. For that, I think I'd want some of our scholarly types back yonder to have a gander; Jorac fancies himself an expert in trinkets that people scavenge."
"Also, and I'd be askin' ya this more as a common decency rather then a condition on any deal: have you laid sight upon an older human fellow, goes by the name of Khonnir. He came down here, and we fear some misfortune befell him. Lastly, we'd need to vet any deal with our companions - I don't know their minds on the matter."
Chezwezl nods in agreement to everything Taran says. "Aye, you seem like good folks. We ain't itchin' for a fight or anything. The additional terms laid out by my well spoken friend seem amiacable, right?"
"Well, I figure that's a fair enough deal on the surface."
"Underground," Sef corrects.
"Now, I think I remember the man you were talking about. I believe it was his expedition which slew my predecessor. They were the third expedition to enter the caves. The first was led by a purple-haired woman and a group of humans, orcs, and ratfolk. The woman met with our leader and arranged payment in the agreement that we would kill any others who came behind. They went north."
"We didn't have to do much to ward off the second expedition; the other creatures mostly took care of them. But the third group-the one with the man you are asking about-gave us trouble. We tried to abide by our terms and fight them off but it proved disastrous to us. And now we are only four left."
"And yes, you may send your expert in to look at the device."
After Taran has exited and Jorac is led into the cave and introduced, Sef shows Jorac five strange cards made of a flexible, smooth material. They each bbear a brown stripe. She confesses that she doesn't know what they are but informs you, "The purple-haired lady asked us for any such cards when she first passed through. At the time we had none but I'm sure they have value if she wanted them so badly.?
Access cards must be encoded to specific locks before they can function. Often, all of the doors in a complex are keyed to a unique set of cards that don't work on doors found in other complexes, much like a skeleton key might open all the doors in one castle but none in another. Coding an access card for specific locks requires a lock coder.
Brown access cards are worth about 1.5 gp each.
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Jorac examines the cards with great attention, trading his usual haughty attitude for a thorough fascination.
"I should very much like to meet this purple-haired lady. These are in fact access cards - a key of sorts, if you like. You swipe them through an electronic lock and it will open any door of the same color as the card itself, or "lower colors" in their hierarchy - brown is the lowest, followed by black, white, gray, green, red, blue, orange and prismatic. However, each complex has a specific set of cards - this card wouldn't be of any use in, say, the Silver Mount. Encoding it to work would require a lock coder - an artifact which I have long sought but never found."
Sef nods at Jorac's explanation. "So they are of value to you then? Good. If you take out the gremlins, they will be yours. I don't think I would find a use for them except to sell to someone else."
Taran grumbles at the proceedings. I swore to talk in good faith, but their casual evil. It stokes the fires of wrath.
Mef returns to get Trigger and steps up into the saddle. "Ready to move out?"
Chezwezl reloads his pistol and follows along. "Left? Don't you know left is sinister!" Mef grumbles. "Probably all sorts of unsavories this way."
Before getting too far Mefindio notices a spring-loaded spike trap in the middle of the next chamber .
"Yeeow! Hold there Taran!" Chezwezl calls out. "I told you left was sinister! I just saved your hide from stepping into a trap!" Looking around, he asks. "Anyone handy at fiddlin' with them sorts of machinations?"
"Harumph. My hide is pretty thick. But, thanks all the same."
Jaran easily disables the spike and makes the passage safe to travel down!
As the party travels further, however, you are indeed set upon by a lean little bat-eared horror of a gremlin, his mouth full of needle-like teeth and glowing, orange eyes!
Chezwezl holds, waiting for the some space to open up.
Chezwezl kicks his heels and urges Trigger past his companions towards the gremlin. "Pardon me, er excuse me...watch yer foot there! Whoa girl!"
Circling around to the north, he stabs at the gremlin with his lance.
Jorac's acid nearly hits Mefindio as the gnome pushes his way forward and smacks the gremlin. Unfortunately his weapon does not seem as effective against the creature.
2 dmg
Libri swings and misses! Suddenly another tiny gremlin pops in behind Taran and the first one moves in to attack Mefindio!
#1: 2 dmg
"Ahh! Blasted little bugger! Take that!" Chezwezl screams as he drops his lance, and then grabs and swings his hook hammer.
Whinnying in fear, Trigger rears back and tries to stomp the tiny creature.
The dagger bounces off the dwarfs armor.
"Eh? Torag's beard! Take that you critter!"
Taran swings a hammer at the creature closest to Jorac, but his lack of combat experience shows plainly.